A time-warp Triumph

Imagine for a moment that you actually liked Triumph TR7s. That you'd eschewed the rugged Ealing comedy charm of the TR3, rejected the real-ale-and-rugger appeal of the TR5 and decided, out of choice rather than financial necessity, that you wanted a TR7.

Hard to imagine I know, but such people do exist. Meet David Price, a cool, thirtysomething, former music journalist who now writes about technology. For him, an enthusiast of all things built under the British Leyland regime, a fixed-head TR7 was the ultimate. Then he found the ultimate TR7. A new one, basically.

He came across the car by accident. "I was on a coach in Germany on my way to a press conference and saw it in the window of a Nissan dealership," says Price, who drives a bright yellow 1978 Rover SD1 every day and also owns one of the best surviving TR8s.

After the conference Price went to the dealer and was told a remarkable tale. The TR7 was originally bought by a West German Triumph dealership in May 1979, and supplied direct from BL Cars Ltd unregistered and with 36km on the clock. Rather than selling it on to a customer, the dealer kept it in a corner of his showroom. When he retired he decided he didn't have the space to keep it for himself, and so it was sold as part of the building contents.

The BL dealership then became a Nissan agent and, with little likelihood of finding a customer for a brown, wedge-shaped 1970s British sports car among 1980s Micra buyers, the TR7 was stored in a garage outside the main premises. "There it rather fell from grace," says Price. "It lost some small items of trim — the ashtrays, facia, mats and radio. The wheels also disappeared, but were replaced by a new set of alloys.''

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Worried about the ravages of weather, the owner smothered the car in Waxoyl, coating the underside and drowning the engine bay in a sea of the stuff.

Price bought the car on the spot and repatriated it to the UK. You'd think a "new", permanently stored, never driven and unregistered Triumph TR7 would be relatively easy to get on the road — but it wasn't that simple.

"To its credit, the paintwork was surprisingly lustrous and unfaded," says Price, "and the underside was absolutely staggering — complete with original silver paint on the rear axle, engine, gearbox and exhaust!" Mechanically, though, the car had suffered. While the engine started and ran — amazingly smoothly and quietly considering it still had the original Unipart spark plugs and running-in oil — it was impossible to engage the clutch. After extensive spanner wielding, a new clutch was fitted along with reconditioned master and slave cylinders. The "Brown Bullet" was then able to move forward under its own power but it couldn't stop — all the brakes had seized, necessitating a complete strip-down and rebuild of the braking system. This was easier said than done, because the wheel nuts had seized on to the studs.

The cooling system was an obvious concern as even fresh out of the factory it was never the TR7's strongest suit, so a new radiator, hoses and thermostat were fitted. Other problems included a rusty fuel tank. Inside, the odometer was changed to a mph type, the missing ashtrays, facia, mats and cigarette lighter were replaced, a new windscreen was fitted and the headlining was repainted.

The car subsequently breezed through an MoT — the tester had never seen anything like it. Original Lucas labels hung from the wiring loom and the original BL exhaust wore as-new date stickers.

Price had given up on new cars. "I'd had an MGF and to be honest the TR7 was much more fun to drive: it was more communicative and direct, you could feel what it's doing. It debunked the myth of all British Leyland stuff being rubbish. So much of the negativity about old BL cars is based on people driving knackered examples. If you can find a time-warp car like the TR7 you can see they really weren't that bad.''

He put quite a few miles on the car but used it sparingly, in the dry. "Young kids thought it was a Ferrari, and I got 50-year-old 1970s swingers coming up and saying, `Wow, I had one of those, it was a real bird-puller'.''

His non-enthusiast friends, however, thought the car was "absolutely disgusting". "They were a bit miffed," he says, "that my chocolate brown TR7 got such attention from the public. It had loads of character. You couldn't take it seriously."

Price sold the TR7 six months ago with about 4,000 miles on the clock. "The official explanation for getting rid of it was that I was driving it every day into London and it was too nice for that slog," he says. "Also it got elbowed out by new additions, so it was a `fleet management' issue; I bought an early, mint, low-mileage Jaguar XJ40 from a genuine `little old lady' and there was just no room to store the TR7."

The Triumph went to a TR enthusiast who was retiring to Spain. "He had a TR3 as well but wanted the TR7 as his `modern' car. I like to think of it sunning itself out there, where hopefully it will never go rusty."Bird-puller: the as-new Triumph TR7